Pick the right tools for your painting job

You need the right tools to get the job done (and to save your sanity)

Clockwise, from top-left:

Shur-Line Pump & Paint Edging Kit: A pump affixes to the top of the paint can, allowing you to extract the right amount of paint every time without waste. The system fits a 1-gal. can and works well with brushes, trim rollers and edgers. $20; www.shurline.com

Wooster Dust Eater: Dust and dirt will ruin any paint job, but this triangular, triple-pivoting brush with treated yarn makes for easy work, even in corners. $20; www.woosterbrush.com

Purdy Pro-Extra and Chinex brushes: Extra-long, extra-thick filaments combine for brushes with great paint-holding capacity with split ends that never stray. $25-$33; www.purdycorp.com

Dynamic 9-in-1 Painter’s Tool: The Swiss Army knife for painters, this hammer-size tool is a paint-can opener, wall-crack cleaner, spreader, scraper, roller cleaner, nail puller and hammer. $10;www.getpainting.com

Shur-Line Teflon Roller Tray: Cleaning a paint tray is a messy exercise that usually ends with your sink smothered in paint. This tray is different; simply wait for the paint to dry in the tray and then–as with cleaning a non-stick frying pan–peel it off. $8; www.shurline.com

Purdy White Dove Roller: Instead of wool glued to a plastic tube, this roller features thousands of nylon-like filaments woven right into the roller, so there’s no shedding and cleanup is five times faster. Another time saving feature: this roller holds a lot of paint. $7; www.purdycorp.com